Over the past months, children around the world have created more than 6,000 books about their favorite clubs and players through our Fan Engagement solution for clubs.

The most exciting part for us is to see how children are becoming proud authors based on their passion. This helps children understand the value of literacy through real-life interests and experiences.

Clubs and players can play a vital role in engaging students and teaching key values while visiting schools. Based on our experience, we have compiled a guideline for the clubs, teachers, and students on how to get the most out of these visits.

Taking fan engagement to the next level at schools

At a local school in Odense, Denmark, the students had done their research and prepared questions for the players.

One of the teachers summed up the benefits for her students this way:

When we open up for the world outside the school, the children suddenly can see how the different genres can be used. Instead of interviewing each other, it’s much more exciting to make specific questions for specific people.

Here is a short video of the session. Note: Enable English subtitles in the video settings.

Program for teaching fair play and fandom

The program consists of the following two parts that the students can choose from or combine as needed. The listed questions can support the teacher in the pre-writing phase and students in the writing phase.

Fair play:

• What is fair play and in which situations can fair play take place?
• Why is fair play important?
• What is a good teammate and opponent, and what can they do to show fair play?
• Write about situations where you have shown fair play or someone has shown fair play to you.

Fandom:

• Which club/team/player are you a fan of and why?
• What is good fan behavior? What is bad fan behavior?
• Who is your favorite player and why?
• Write about the best experience you have had as a fan.

Players visiting a school/class

Preparations for the club:

• Select a couple of players, and a school and some classes (grade 3-6).
• Ask the school to have their students’ research info about the players visiting their class and prepare questions.

Preparations for the schools before the visit:

• Have the students search for information about their players and the club.
• Each student writes a book based on their findings and questions.
• Print the info and question book.

During the visit:

• Select two students at the time (not assigned to the same player) who can ask their questions to the players.
• Make sure that the learning partner takes notes or record the answers during the Q&A.
• Before the players leave, ask them to sign the students’ printed info and question books.

School activities after the visit:

• Transcribe and use the players’ answers from the Q&A as a starting point for a new book and include some of the photos taken during the visit.
• Print the books and make a display at the school library.
• If possible take the class to the club to hand over the books.
• Invite or visit other classes at the school for read-aloud sessions based on the created books.

Feel free to reach out to info@writereader.com if you would like to hear more about our work with sports clubs, schools, and parents.